Linda Clair Transcript

Linda Clair Interview

Summary:

Rick: Welcome to Buddha at the Gas Pump. My name is Rick Archer and my guest today is Linda Clair. Linda is down in Melbourne, Australia and she seems to be quite popular down there. She has an interesting following. I’ve read her book, What Do You Want? and it consists largely of interactions with her students, many of which are quite lively and fascinating. So welcome Linda. Thanks for doing this.

Linda: Hi Rick.

Rick: Hiya. One thing that I first noticed about you, Linda, when I started reading your book, and we’ll get into your whole bio and how you came to be where you are now and all, but one thing I first noticed was that you’re not shy about using the “e” word, which some people are, and I guess they are, even in the Buddhist tradition, if you ask the Dalai Lama if he’s enlightened, he’ll just sort of give some deferential answer, he won’t answer, and yet you were raised in a Buddhist tradition, or pursued one, and so what do you mean by enlightenment and why is it that you’re comfortable using the word in terms of your own experience?

Linda: Well, I’ll answer the second part of the question first. I feel comfortable using it because I know when I was practicing, that’s what I was looking for, a teacher who was enlightened. So my teacher, who was trained in the Buddhist tradition, my first teacher, used the word “enlightenment” and that’s what appealed to me, and that’s basically what I wanted. And so when I realized, I didn’t want to be shy about using the word, and I suppose it’s one reason I couldn’t teach in the Buddhist tradition, because there’s all those rules about not using the “e” word, the enlightenment word. I don’t use it as much now as I used to, but yeah, I used to use it quite a bit. And it’s really what most people are interested in, they’re interested in enlightenment, so I didn’t see any reason for skirting around it, for avoiding the word.

Rick: That’s a good answer, and I feel the same way. I wouldn’t use the “e” word myself because I don’t feel like I’m enlightened, but there used to be an airline ad in the United States that said, “If you’ve got it, flaunt it.”

Linda: Well, it’s not really a matter of flaunting it, but like I said, it’s what people are interested in, and I know it’s what I was interested in, and it gets people going. So, I get a lot of negative reactions and people saying, “Oh, you must be arrogant, and how can you be enlightened?” And then other people who go, “Well, I’ll check her out and just see if what she says is true.” So, it was difficult to say at first. It was a bit difficult to actually say, “Yes, I am enlightened,” but it’s true, so that’s what I say.

Rick: Yeah, one of my motivations for starting this show about five years ago was that I live in a town where approximately 3,000 people meditate out of 10,000 population, and a lot of people have been meditating for many decades, and people were having profound awakenings, shifts, whatever you want to call them. And even without calling them enlightenment, people were getting flack from friends when they would announce that they had awakened. And friends would say, “You don’t look any different, and how could you be awakened? You’re just a normal schmo that I’ve always known.” And so I thought, “Well, you know, I’m going to start an interview show.” Initially, I conceived of it as a local radio show where I talk to some of these people and kind of get it out there that this is actually happening, and maybe it will make it more normal in people’s mentality and remove the stigma of proclaiming that you have actually achieved what you’ve been trying to achieve for the last 40 years, you know. And I think the show is to a great extent having that effect now, except I kind of ended up going well beyond my local town.

Linda: Yeah. Well, I think most people’s deepest fear is that they’re going to become enlightened. Even though they say, “This is what I really want,” when it comes down to it, they like to have that separation between a teacher and themselves because it’s something that they can aspire to but never reach. So you can look at people up on a stage with thousands of people in front of them and feel really affected by it, and it can be great, but there’s this deep separation, and that’s how most people want to keep it. They want to keep that separateness. They don’t really want to be free, completely free. Deep down they do, but the fear is so deep that it’s very difficult to get over that. So in the way I teach, I wanted to just— well, I like teaching with smaller groups most of the time and one-to-one quite a bit because it’s more confronting for people, and I just dress normally and—

Rick: Still call yourself Linda.

Linda: Yeah, my mother doesn’t see any difference. So it makes it more accessible for people.

Rick: Yeah.

Linda: People have got all these ideas about how you should be when you’re enlightened and they impose it on everyone. Anyone who says they’re enlightened says they can’t be enlightened because they still watch movies or they still do this or do that or they said this or they said that, and it’s just not true. And I was the same. I remember seeing Barry Long. I don’t know if you’ve heard of him.

Rick: I’ve heard of him. I haven’t. Is he still alive?

Linda: No, no, he died quite a while ago, but I remember seeing him in the local supermarket and I was watching him one day and I thought, “Ah, he doesn’t look very happy.” Yeah, I knew he was enlightened, but I still had all these judgments about how he should be, how he should behave.

Rick: Yeah, you know Adyashanti probably, right? I helped organize Adyashanti to come to my town and we got to have lunch with him. And he had a hamburger and we spent most of the time talking about how he likes to decorate a really large Christmas tree at Christmas time and all this normal stuff. Anybody overhearing the conversation might have wondered, “What’s so special about this guy?” But boy, just sitting next to him during lunch, I was high as a kite. I mean, the energy he radiated was really profound. And of course, if you’ve ever heard him speak, he’s extremely clear. So, I guess that leads us to the question of, what is enlightenment after all? If a lot of people have all sorts of associations in their mind as to what it’s supposed to look like, and if half of those are erroneous, what is it we’re actually talking about and that we’re all making such a big fuss about in our little subculture of people who are interested in enlightenment?

Linda: Well, in a few words, it’s the absence of fear. So, in enlightenment, all that goes is the fear. And you actually see that the fear was never there to start with, but that’s what goes. And you see how fear motivates the behavior, even the smallest bodily actions of just about all people. And that’s what I saw in myself. I had no idea how full of fear I was. And when I realized, and it’s not that the fear goes all at once. It takes years for it to really subside after that point that you call enlightenment. But I’d say the point of enlightenment is the point where the majority of the fear, maybe 99% of the fear, dissolves, just goes.

Rick: The Upanishads say all fear is born of duality. Well, that raises several questions. One you just alluded to, which is I think many people hearing that would say, “Well, what’s that all about? Because I don’t feel like I have a lot of fear. I go through my life sort of normally. So, maybe I’m enlightened or maybe that’s not a valid criterion, fear.”

Linda: You’re not aware of it, but when you start sitting by yourself without any distractions, the fear starts to come up. So, most people spend most of their lives avoiding fear. And I was the same, distractions, anything, not to feel this fear. And I would have said the same. I would have said, “Oh, no, I’m not very scared. I haven’t got much fear.” But I saw later on that I was just full of it. It dictated every little action, every small bodily movement. I was so self-conscious that everything was dictated by fear. But I wasn’t aware of it, of course. And the first time I really became aware of it was when I met my first teacher. Not the first time I met him, but after a few meetings. And there was this sudden connection with us. It was like there was this click and there was something in him that I saw and I didn’t know what it was. And now I can look at it and say, “There was just no fear there.”

Rick: They say that solitary confinement is one of the most cruel punishments. In some cases it’s considered to be torture. Because you just don’t have any stimulation and everything starts to bubble up, even if you’re not a meditator of any kind. Which of course most people in solitary confinement aren’t. Although I imagine you could be confined to that now, right? If you were, for some reason, put in solitary confinement for a month, do you think you’d be a pretty happy camper anyway?

Linda: I don’t know if I’d be happy, but I’d be the same as I am now. So I’d say it wouldn’t change things. But it’s not that… I mean enlightenment doesn’t mean that you’re happy all the time. That was the idea I had of it. You’d be in this ecstatic state for the rest of your life. And it’s not that. It’s just that you’re not unhappy. And the outside circumstances don’t deeply affect you. Of course on the surface, you know, I’m still affected by things, but deep down, not at all. Nothing moves you anymore.

Rick: Let’s talk about the happiness/unhappiness thing more in a minute, but more on fear first. When you began confronting the reservoir of fear that we all carry around with us, I think you said it took years to wash it all out. So were you in a… as it came out, as it was resolved, did you have to experience wave after wave of fear and resolve each wave, so to speak, and then go on to the next? Or what was the subjective experience of working through all that?

Linda: Well, for me, it was seeing the fear in my daily life. The main thing that really cleared it out was sitting with my teacher, being around him and then doing hours and hours of sitting, both with him and by myself. And sitting with your fear and sitting on long retreats. Oh, they weren’t all that long, some of them were. But sitting with pain in your body, feeling incredible sometimes pain in my body.

Rick: Because of your sitting posture or some kind of inner angst or something that was coming to the surface?

Linda: No, I was going to say it was nothing to do with my sitting posture, but it was in a way because if you keep your body still, your back straight and unsupported, it’s really going to intensify the whole thing and free up the energy. So sitting there for hours on end, just watching what comes up and feeling really uncomfortable sensations in your body is a really powerful thing to do and not distracting yourself. So it’s like I was facing the fear that I’d been trying to avoid for most of my life, or almost all my life. And I can’t say another thing is, I can’t say it’s all gone now. So there might be, well there probably is a bit of a tiny bit of residual.

Rick: Yeah, one point I read in your book was that you said that as long as you’re in a body, as long as you’re alive, there’s got to be some residual ego in order to function, at least you thought there was. And traditionally in the Indian tradition, they call that “leishavidya,” some faint remains of ignorance that’s necessary in order to function. And so maybe a little residual fear is part of that, do you think?

Linda: I think maybe. I wrote that book, well those conversations were quite a while ago, probably about seven years ago. I’m writing another book now, but in November I’m going to India to sit with someone there for about three weeks, and I feel that’s really going to do something too. But I know in the last ten years a lot has happened, a lot more has happened in me.

Rick: That’s an interesting question too. I mean that brings up an interesting question, which because to me, one of the reasons I’m a little leery of the E-word is it has a kind of a superlative, static connotation, you know? It’s like you’ve reached some kind of plateau beyond which no further progress or experience is possible. And I don’t think I’ve met a human being yet, and I’ve met some pretty interesting ones, whom I feel could not actually get more clear, more deep, somehow more refined in their understanding, their perception, their emotions, whatever it is that makes us tick. There always seems to be a horizon. So, what do you say to that?

Linda: Well, when at first, I think that’s true, there’s always more, and it’s always challenging. I can’t say that definitely, because I don’t know, and that’s the thing, I don’t know. But when it first happened to me, when I first realized, I felt, “Oh, how can it be any better than this? How can it be any more amazing than this? This is it.” And there is still a bit of a part of you that wants that to be it. So, there must be still a little bit of ego there saying, “This is it. You can’t go any deeper than this. This is it.” And then I started teaching probably a year after that. And I think when you’re teaching, even though I felt it wasn’t really affecting me, I think a little bit can creep in where you feel, “Okay, I’m responsible for these people. I’m advising them, doing all this stuff, you know, telling them these things.” And it can affect your ego slightly. So, you can start to become a bit identified with being a teacher. And as it goes on, if you’re really open to more things happening, you start to see, “Ah, there’s more. There’s a lot more.” But I’d say in the first couple of years, there is a little bit of resistance. And part of it is probably shock from the whole thing where you’re just still settling in to this state and relearning how to operate in the world and what’s going on. And then you’re ready for more things to happen, but you have to be open to it. If you say, “Okay, this is it. There’s no more,” that’s putting a limit on it. This is a state of timelessness, of eternity. So if you say, “Okay, this is the end,” it’s negating that whole thing. So, yeah, there’s more and more and so much has happened in the last 10 years. And I feel more can happen. And I feel ready for something even deeper to happen. And that’s why I feel strongly about a friend who’s invited me to go and sit with a teacher there.

Rick: Who’s that?

Linda: His name is Baba, but I forget the rest of his name. I can look it up and send it to you if you like. But I think part of it is just going to India. I haven’t actually been to India before. I’ve been to Japan and was in a monastery for a while, but I haven’t been to India. And I feel like going somewhere and just not being a teacher. And a few people, a few students wanted to come too, and I was not so keen on it because I don’t want to be around people as a teacher. I’d rather just go more anonymously and just sit.

Rick: What part of India is he in?

Linda: Near Mumbai, a few hours from Mumbai.

Rick: Okay.

Linda: He’s not well-known. He’s not a well-known teacher. Osho was his master.

Rick: Oh.

Linda: Yeah.

Rick: Hmm.

Linda: So…

Rick: Well, you have an adventure anyway.

Linda: Yeah.

Rick: See what happens.

Linda: It’ll be interesting to see what happens.

Rick: Yeah. So you mentioned 10 years. So has it been about 10 years since your enlightenment?

Linda: It’s been 10 years. Yeah, 10 years, around 10 years.

Rick: Okay. And you defined enlightenment. Probably there are other measures by which you can define it, but you defined it in terms of the elimination of fear, or at least almost all fear. But you said a lot has happened in the last 10 years. So I guess this is a two-part question. What other criteria would you use to measure or define enlightenment? And what has been happening in the last 10 years since that initial… Well, since that transition? How have things been unfolding?

Linda: Well, when it first happened, it was like everything stopped. So when I look at it now, it’s such a shock when it happens that it takes time to really digest it and to realize fully what’s happened. And I feel it took me about seven years to get really established in it and used to it, just used to it. Because there were still a few preconceived ideas, tiny ones that were there about how I should be and how it should be. And it took a while for them to really dissolve.

Rick: During this adjustment period, were you intermittently losing it occasionally, or was it more a matter of you weren’t losing it, but it was a matter of sort of learning to function normally in that state?

Linda: Yeah, you don’t lose it, and that’s the amazing thing about it. And that’s what I realized. It’s never going to go away. That was the deep realization that this is here, I’m here, and I’m never going to go back to how I was. The mind might come in a little bit, but it’s never going to have that control over me that it had before. So there was this realization of that. And there weren’t bright lights or, “Oh, wow, this is amazing. It was a very gentle dissolving, dissolving of me, and it was just amazing.

Rick: Go ahead. No, continue, please.

Linda: For the next seven years, what happened, I think when it first happens, you get a bit obsessed with this absolute state. So it’s like, “Oh, this is amazing,” and you can tend to not want to relate with the world, which is understandable because if you spent 40 or 50 years relating to things in the world, having this relationship with the world, it’s great having a break from it. So you can go a bit too far the other way and get a bit of maybe even slightly attached or just immersed in this absolute state. So what was happening was learning to be in this absolute state while combining the world, the relative, and realizing that the relative is part of the absolute. It’s not this separate thing, which you can sort of feel at first that, “Okay, there’s still this absolute, and there is this relative, but I don’t want to know about the relative. I just want to be in this absolute.” So you have to gradually accept that the relative is part of the absolute, and the absolute to a degree is relative, has some sort of relativity about it. It’s not absolute. Nothing is absolute.

Rick: Some saints and teachers and so on have described their state of being as one in which pure consciousness is never lost, 24/7. So they’ll be fast asleep. Others might perceive them as snoring like a sailor, but inside they’re awake in that pure consciousness state. I have a whole collection of quotes from Ramana Maharshi and Tat Wale Baba and a number of others describing this. Has that been your experience?

Linda: Yeah, and that’s why it’s so intense, and especially at first it’s very tiring because it’s almost like you’re trapped in this freedom. You’re trapped in this awake, this pure consciousness, pure intelligence, and it’s like that all the time, and you can’t get away from it. And it’s why you, well I know for me, I like doing just really mundane, ordinary things like going to a movie or something like that just to sort of take the edge off it a bit.

Rick: Stir it up.

Linda: Yeah, just to take the edge off it because it’s really, really intense being in it. Eventually it just becomes much more natural, but the first few years in particular, it was very tiring and intense at times.

Rick: Yeah. Have you ever had surgery or anything during these ten years? And was your experience under anesthesia different? Did you totally lose it under anesthesia or was it retained even then or maybe you haven’t had surgery?

Linda: I have. I had it a couple of years ago and I had a general anesthetic and I was quite relieved. I was asleep the whole time. The only interesting thing was afterwards they kept trying to give me painkillers and I didn’t need them. It was just a minor surgery, but they insisted on me taking these painkillers with me because I’d need them and I didn’t take any painkillers after the surgery. And that was interesting. But the anesthetic, I just went out like anyone.

Rick: Yeah. I ask that question because a friend of mine whom I’ve interviewed describes the same experience very beautifully of just this pure awareness all the time. But he had surgery and he was kind of surprised because he was out like a light during the surgery and he hadn’t anticipated that that would happen. Anyway, it’s an interesting phenomenon. I find it interesting also because I think it … you know how you were saying in the beginning that a lot of people find it hard to believe that anyone’s enlightened or that so-and-so is enlightened and so on. But there’s the flip side of that which is that sometimes people proclaim themselves to be enlightened when perhaps they aren’t and get up on a pedestal and start making a big fuss about themselves. And it’s interesting if we have some kind of benchmarks, some kind of litmus test for what enlightenment actually is and perhaps this inner awareness during sleep is one of them. It would be a hard thing to … you could certainly lie to others about it, but you can’t lie to yourself. It would be a hard thing to fake.

Linda: Yeah. How do you prove it though?

Rick: Yeah, I don’t know if you can prove it unless there’s a unique brainwave signature to it which can be measured and I think there may be. I mean there are people researching that sort of thing. And you could see that in enlightened people even during sleep there’s a distinct brainwave pattern that you’re not seeing in other people. So, that would be something to measure it.

Linda: Yeah, maybe I should do that.

Rick: Go have your brainwaves measured.

Linda: Yeah, maybe.

Rick: Yeah.

Linda: My teacher did that once. He had some sort of scan and they said, “Oh, you should be dead.”

Rick: Interesting.

Linda: Yeah, it was interesting. How do you gauge someone who’s enlightened? I don’t know. For me it was just there was something about—this was my first teacher—I couldn’t put my finger on. I just couldn’t work out who he was. So, there was something about him and it really brought up this deep desire in me to have what he had, what I saw that he had. And, of course, eventually I saw it was something he didn’t have that I had.

Rick: It kind of reminds me of when Harry met Sally in that scene in the restaurant. Did you ever see that movie? I’ll have what she’s having.

Linda: Yeah, well it was like that. It was like, “Ah, I want that. I want that.”

Rick: Now, you said something interesting a minute ago which was about awakening to the absolute. And, the relative was sort of like, “I’ve had enough of that. Go away.” And then over the years you’ve been integrating that more and more. So, can you describe in some greater detail your relationship to the relative, your orientation to the relative as you’ve gone along? How has that been changing?

Linda: I think at first there was a bit of a resistance to the relative which pointed to a bit of fear in me. There was also a lack of interest as well. I just wasn’t at all, at times, I just wasn’t interested in it at all. I wasn’t interested in it. I had feelings of, “Ah, I wouldn’t mind just going and living in a cabin in the bush somewhere and not doing this.” But, I could see, because when I started teaching, I started to realize what teaching involved. And, it’s quite a difficult thing to do. It looks great from the outside, but when you’re in it, it’s quite a bit of responsibility and it’s hard. It’s quite difficult. You’ve got people saying, “No, you’re not enlightened.” Yeah. And, anyway, yeah, I had feelings of just retiring, going and sitting in the bush. But, I could see that was sort of a bit of a selfish thing too at that time. So, I resisted that. And, I just gradually got more into accepting, uniting the absolute and the relative.

Rick: And, how about not only your motivation and that kind of thing, but how about your actual perception of the relative? Does it seem to be getting, do the senses seem to be changing in some way, the way you actually perceive through your eyes, ears, whatever, relative objects?

Linda: The senses change radically. Like, before, when I was looking at something, I wasn’t just looking. There was a whole lot of other judgment and personal judgment associated with it. So, I couldn’t even look at a blank wall without it setting off a train of thought. This was pre, before enlightenment. I couldn’t look at a person without all this past stuff coming up, all these past associations and, “What did he do to me? What did she do to me? What do I feel about this person?” And, the vision changes completely because you just look without all this mind stuff going on in between. Like, before, when I was talking with someone, I’d be looking at them, but it would be, there’d be all this stuff happening very, very quickly while I was looking at them and talking with them. Now, and during that transition period of accepting the relative, there was a little bit of grief sometimes because I would look at something that previously I saw as beautiful, like in nature, beautiful trees and the ocean, and nothing would happen. There wouldn’t be this, “Oh, this is amazing.” But then, at the same time, I’d be somewhere where I would have previously thought was ugly and awful, and that wouldn’t happen either. So, there’d be nothing there, and part of me missed that for a while, but then eventually it all evened out. And, it’s the same when with my vision, with my actual physical vision, because there’s not all this stuff going on, there’s a much wider view with the eyes, so I can see to my side much more than I could before. It’s like an overall thing, and I can’t just focus on one thing. It’s really interesting, you know, so I can look at you, but I’m also seeing everything around.

Rick: But you can focus on the task at hand. If you’re cutting vegetables with a sharp knife, you’re able to focus on that, right? But you’re just saying that there’s a kind of a broad vision at the same time.

Linda: Well, I can’t focus on anything. Not focus, yeah, exclusively. So, I can’t exclude anything anymore. So, if I’m chopping vegetables, of course I’ve got to chop vegetables. And, I cut my finger the other day because I wasn’t paying enough attention. But, I’m also aware of everything that’s happening around me too. And, it’s the same with hearing. If I’m talking with someone and there’s someone within hearing distance talking to someone else, I can’t just listen to the person I’m talking to. I’m listening to all of the conversations at once. So, it can be quite distracting, a bit disturbing being in a room with a whole lot of people talking because I can’t just listen, say I’m talking to you and there’s someone else over there. I can’t put most of my attention on that. It’s like everything becomes more homogenous rather than focusing and excluding anything else. I can’t exclude anything anymore. So, if I’m chopping vegetables, of course I’ll do that, but I’ll be aware of everything. I learned actually a really good training for that was when I was in the monastery in Japan, that’s how they eat. So, if you’re sitting at a table and eating, you have to be aware of everyone else at the table because everyone goes at a certain speed and people are passing food around. So, you have to have this open awareness of what’s happening. You can’t just get lost in eating your food.

Rick: That’s interesting. It reminds me of a couple of things. One is that I have heard it described that it’s not that your comprehension of actual relative phenomena becomes more inclusive. You can focus sharply to the exclusion of relative phenomena, but there’s a kind of awareness itself, which is without content, the absolute field of awareness becomes broad and comprehensive while the senses are focusing sharply. But on the other hand, I’ve heard completely different, the opposite of that, and have had experiences of it actually. For instance, an interesting example is Amma, the hugging saint, who I’ve gone to see many times. She usually has this whirlwind of activity around her, and she’s hugging people, and she’s talking to people, and she’s doing this and she’s doing that. One time I was sitting 30 feet away in a chair talking to a friend, and I brought something up to the friend that would have been quite a shock to him, perhaps, would have been quite controversial. And all of a sudden, in the midst of all the stuff she was doing, Amma just shot me a look, like, “What are you doing? Shut up.” And I thought, “Wow, did she just tune in on that one particular thing, or is she actually aware of all the details in such a wide periphery, such a wide radius of her environment, that she could have said that something to somebody else as likely as saying it to me?”

Linda: I’d say she would have been aware of the whole thing, and maybe even heard you talking.

Rick: Even though it was noisy and there’s music going on and all that.

Linda: Yeah.

Rick: Interesting. So, that’s kind of interesting. It’s interesting to flesh out the details of what enlightenment might be like, like this. And I don’t know if it would be like this for everybody, or if it’s just your experience, but I’m fascinated with, in the Eastern traditions, they have much more developed roadmaps than we do in the West of what enlightenment is like, and all the various stages and subtleties of it. And we’re just kind of learning that in the West, I think, more and more as more people begin to experience it. Any comments on that? It’s not really a question, just a comment.

Linda: I was waiting for the question. Yeah, that’s true. That’s one thing that attracted me to Zen, and to my first teacher. They were definite. Like, a lot of people talk about enlightenment, and it’s great. I love hearing about it, and now I just love talking about it. I could talk about it for the rest of my life. But what I really wanted was a way to become enlightened. And in the East, in the Zen tradition, Buddhist tradition, the Vipassana tradition, there are definite stages and steps, and there’s something, there’s a practice. And I think to really, I feel, to really become free of the mind, you need to have some sort of structure. So, this is what I feel, it’s no use just sitting there for hours on end, just staring into space. There needs to be some sort of structure to really, because you need to be firm with the mind. It’s so deeply embedded in almost everyone that you need to use this firm structure and discipline, not rigidity, but discipline to really become free of it, to really get into it. So, the East has got this structure, and in Japan especially, it might seem quite severe, and being at a monastery is severe, but it’s really necessary, and it works. It really does work.

Rick: Yeah, I know from reading your book you’re big on meditation, and there’s even a Q&A in your book where somebody asks you to comment on these teachers who say that it’s not necessary to meditate or don’t bother with it or whatnot, and you might as well address that point.

Linda: Well, yeah, I suppose in those days I was interested in talking about that more, because I don’t know why. Now I’m not so interested in other teachers, but anyone who says it’s not necessary to do some meditation, of course I don’t agree with it. It’s not just meditation. I feel like it’s a combination of meditation and the relationship, the trust with your teacher, so a deep trust in your teacher. So, other teachers, yeah, I’m not so concerned about what they feel. I don’t agree with them, of course, if they say things like that.

Rick: Ironically, some of the teachers who say that are people who have been doing some kind of meditation for 30 years, and then they wake up and they feel like, “Oh, that wasn’t necessary.”

Linda: Well, I can never understand that. Why is someone going to, if you’re truly here, if you really are here, enlightened, dismiss everything that you’ve done? Because what I saw was that everything I did contributed to this state, to where I am now, which is just simply here. So, I’ve got a deep respect for the practice that I was into before that and that was shown to me. I’ve got a deep respect for Zen, for any sort of Buddhism, for any sort of practice. So, I suppose I was in Byron Bay for a while, and I’d say I’d meditate. Byron Bay is like, I don’t know what it’s like, it’s like the spiritual center of Australia and a whole lot of people walking around saying, “I’m enlightened, I’m enlightened.” But you’d say meditate and they’d just about laugh in your face, like, “You don’t need to do that, that’s ridiculous.” But true meditation is very deeply body-based, so it’s based on the body. A lot of people think you’re using your mind to get rid of your mind. It’s not that at all. It’s very strongly body-based.

Rick: One thing I’ve noticed is that there are a lot of people who, like you said in Byron Bay, perhaps who read a lot of spiritual books or listen to spiritual teachers or whatever, and they get an intellectual, intuitive sense of what enlightenment is. And then they mistake that understanding for actual realization and they think that that’s all it is, is this sort of understanding. They’ve kind of hypnotized themselves a little bit by immersing themselves in an understanding and they don’t realize the distinction between that and actual living experience. Have you noticed that syndrome?

Linda: Oh yeah, yeah. It’s one of the reasons I didn’t want to live in Byron Bay anymore. I don’t know what it’s like up there now, but then it was like that. There were lots of people walking around talking about it. But if you want to see where you are, just sit in a room by yourself for a few hours and see how you feel.

Rick: Yeah, which I think is one of the reasons why some people carry on that way is that they don’t want to have to sit for a few hours every day for many, many years. It’s like too much work. I’d rather just say I’m there and have done with it.

Linda: Yeah, and that’s the temptation. When you have what I describe as an awakening, and that can happen quite quickly if you’re with a teacher or after a retreat, but being around someone who’s awakened, who’s realized, that can happen quite quickly. The temptation is to just say, “Okay, that’s it. I don’t want to do any more.” But if you’re prepared to say, “Okay, that’s just the beginning. I’ve got a lot more to do,” that’s when things really start happening.

Rick: You mentioned the physiology earlier, and there’s a whole body of wisdom with regard to the physiology of enlightenment. I guess it’s in terms of Tantra and Tantric Shaivism and all that, where they have a pretty detailed understanding of how the physiology needs to be cultured along with the subjective experience in order to support that subjective experience, and how a premature awakening without sufficient physiological foundation for it can be quite even harmful or dangerous. What has been your experience with regard to the physiological changes that you’ve noticed in yourself as your subjective experience has evolved?

Linda: I feel the practice leading up to realization was essential, and it’s one of the reasons I’m so much into meditation, because it’s preparing the body for the shock of realization. So I agree totally with that. People say, “Oh, yeah, I woke up one day and I’m enlightened.” You have to prepare for years and years before your body can actually sustain and cope with that shock. Maybe there are a fair few people in mental institutions who have had that shock without being prepared for it, because it is a huge shock. And for me, I felt it happened in the monastery, and it was such a huge shock, I didn’t even realize what had happened until about nine months later. It took that time for the body to assimilate it, to get used to it.

Rick: Your gestation period.

Linda: Yeah, gestation, nine months. That’s funny, isn’t it? I don’t think I’ve looked at that before. So, yeah, it’s a huge shock, so you need to prepare your body if you’re really going to be grounded in it and be able to contain it. And that’s what meditation is, containing this energy.

Rick: Yeah, Christ spoke of pouring new wine into old wineskins, you know. There’s the whole Patanjali’s yoga, Ashtanga yoga, eight limbs of yoga, it has to do with only one of the limbs is samadhi, or transcendence. The others all have to do with pranayama, the breath, and asana, the body, and all sorts of moral precepts and so on, to get you to a point where you’re a fit receptacle or vehicle for that profound awakening, which, as you say, could be a shock.

Linda: Yeah, so you don’t have to be physically fit and running and all that stuff. It’s more you need to be very grounded in your body and prepare your body in that way. And I feel when you’re doing this practice, it’s extreme enough without having any sort of rules or moral rules or whatever in your daily life. So, it’s a balance, you need to be quite balanced about it. I say that, but I was totally obsessed by it. I wasn’t balanced at all.

Rick: Well, you know, that comment you made about the mental hospitals, I think there probably are many people in mental hospitals who had some sort of spiritual awakening, and in fact I’ve talked to some such people who were completely misunderstood by medical professionals, and were medicated or they wanted to medicate them. And then there are people like Eckhart Tolle or Byron Katie who had sudden awakenings that they hadn’t really anticipated or prepared for, who indeed took years to integrate. I mean, Eckhart Tolle just sat on a park bench feeding the pigeons for a couple of years after his awakening, he couldn’t do much else, and it took him many years to be able to sort of function.

Linda: Yeah, and he coped with it eventually. But if you do prepare yourself before, it makes it much more tolerable afterwards, you know, you cope with it much better.

Rick: Yeah, so not to belabor the point, but I think we’re making an important point here, which is that enlightenment is not only a subjective experience, it’s a physiological state, there’s a physiological transformation that’s associated with it. And, you know, if scientists were to study it, and there are scientists studying it, they would probably find, and have found actually, that someone living in an enlightened state, their physiology functions quite differently in many respects from the ordinary, average physiology.

Linda: Yeah, yeah, I feel that’s true. And it’s really interesting.

Rick: Yeah.

Linda: The whole quality of your body changes. Before, my body was quite tense, and there was a lot of tension in it. And I’m not saying there’s no tension in it now, but it suddenly softens. It’s like everything just goes, “Ah!” Like the weight of the world is taken off your shoulders, and that deeply affects your body. And every cell comes alive. So it’s not that you never get sick, but I know for me, I’ve become much more aware of what my body needs. And sometimes I’ll just eat stuff that is probably not good for me, but it’s nice to do every now and again. But the things like alcohol, you know, it just doesn’t seem to affect me much anymore, so I don’t bother having it, because it does affect me the next day. But when I’m actually, if I have a drink, it doesn’t really do much at all. So there’s no point in having it.

Rick: Yeah, and you probably find that, you know, if you had several drinks, the state it put you in, which some people consider to be pleasurable or desirable, is far inferior to the state you’re in all the time anyway, so why bother?

Linda: Yeah, yeah. You get very used to feeling incredibly clear. I can see at the beginning, the first few years, there is a temptation to do things a little bit like that, just to have a break from the state. And that might sound funny, you know, because you think, “Oh, this is the ultimate state,” but it’s so intense that you do sometimes feel like having a break, just doing something really, just to make you fall asleep again.

Rick: Yeah, it’s just cookies. I can understand why you would say it’s intense, because there’s a lot of energy, right? I’ve heard in your book you use the word “energy” a lot. I suppose, I mean, we’re talking about a physiological thing here, right, where there’s a lot of energy coursing through your body and there’s no let-up, and you would kind of like a break from that. Address that part of it before I ask the second part.

Linda: Well, I wouldn’t say it’s totally physiological. So, it’s like there’s this body that’s a physical body and it’s trying to contain this energy that’s non-physical. So, it’s an incredible thing for the body to do, for this small physical body to contain this universal energy, and that’s what makes it so intense. So there’s this slight, until it becomes more unified, until the relative and the absolute become one, there is this slight friction or resistance where this body is still trying to unify with this non-physical energy. So, in a way, the body almost becomes non-physical at the end. It’s still physical in a way, but it’s non-physical as well.

Rick: Interesting. In Sanskrit there’s the word “tapas,” which means “heat,” and spiritual practice is sometimes referred to as “tapas,” and it’s like this kind of burning off of the dross, you know, that is occluding pure consciousness or that is gumming up the works of the physiology. And it’s regarded as an intense process that can go on for a long, long time as that burns. And, I mean, have you reached a point now where there isn’t so much that sense of intensity? It’s like relief that most of it’s been burned off and you’re just kind of cruising or what? Or still cooking?

Linda: I don’t know if you’re ever cruising, but relatively, yeah, it’s much less intense in that way than it was, but I still feel like there’s more. I feel like I’ve got to a point, this is just what I feel, and I don’t really know where it has become just completely natural. So it’s more that it’s all natural. There’s not this resistance to anything. But I feel there’s something else that’s going to happen and I don’t know what. And that’s quite amazing to feel there’s not an end to this. Like you feel what else can happen, but then you start to go, “Well, anything can happen, and I don’t know, and I really don’t know.” And that’s amazing. That’s an amazing thing to feel, just totally, “I don’t know. There’s no end to this.”

Rick: It really charms my heart to hear you say that because it’s just somehow the way I think. We always like to have people who agree with us, but I get into these debates with people who say that they are finished and they’re at the end and there’s nothing really more. And I always have the feeling, “I don’t think so. There must be more. You’ve just kind of reached some hiatus, some plateau, but it’s going to keep on going.” So, it’s interesting. Anyway, that’s the point I was making.

Linda: Well, I feel there’s no end. How can there be any end? I mean, maybe that’s the definition of enlightenment. I don’t know. There’s no end. There’s no beginning.

Rick: I think maybe the reason sometimes people feel like there’s an end is that the absolute by definition is understood. It’s complete. It doesn’t change. It’s “what can be added to it?”. So, the feeling I guess people have is that, “Well, if you are that absolute, if you become that absolute, if you’ve known yourself to be that, what more can be added to that?”

Linda: But the absolute, and this is the hard thing to accept, and it sounds crazy and illogical, and it is, but the absolute is relative. The absolute contains relativity, and that’s what I meant about the union of the absolute and the relative. So, that’s what you have to admit rather than getting stuck in this absolute which you can in a way stagnate in. And if you say you’re finished, God, what else is there? You might as well die. There’s always this relativity within the absolute. That’s what I can see. And if you’re not open to that, well, there’s some sort of fear still there.

Rick: It’s an interesting thing. Let’s go into this more. Relativity contained within the absolute, and you said earlier that at a certain stage the absolute and relative seemed to be completely separate and had nothing to do with one another, and then they began to merge. It seems to me that if we understand the absolute to be all-pervading and omnipresent and so on, then what can actually be outside of it? How could there be anything separate from it? And of course that’s to a certain extent an intellectual rumination, but what you’re saying is that your experience began to show that to you, that the absolute and the relative aren’t separate, but in fact everything is contained within a greater wholeness, right? Yes.

Linda: And the relative is part of the absolute. The absolute is everything, so it must contain the relative. How can it not? And this whole thing sounds like a paradox, so saying the absolute contains the relative is how it is. There’s some nice verses in the Vedas about two fullnesses, and how really it’s all one wholeness, but within that wholeness this is full and that is full. Purnamadah, Purnamidam, there’s a whole verse that goes on like that. Both are full. Now back to your thing about appreciating the relative more, and you were talking about peripheral vision and hearing conversations across the room and stuff like that, but I want to just delve in a little bit more to your actual perception. Would you feel that the word appreciation is appropriate in terms of what’s going on with your perception? I mean when you look at a flower, let’s say, and you were saying like even looking at the wall or something, you don’t have this kind of judgmental film that colors your perception, I’m reminded of Saint Paul saying, “We see through a glass darkly and we’ll eventually see clearly.” But do you sort of feel like there’s this somehow deeper, richer, perhaps by virtue of no judgment, no voice in the head, deeper, richer appreciation of each thing to which you give your attention?

Linda: There is a deeper appreciation of everything. You know, I go out and it looks like it’s a sunny day today and that’s beautiful, but I don’t become totally immersed in it. It’s like I see a flower and it’s beautiful, okay, then I … that’s it, it’s gone.

Rick: And it doesn’t overshadow pure consciousness, which it once would have. There would have been this identification thing where you got lost in the perception.

Linda: Yeah, yeah, and then I’d see a beautiful flower and then I’d remember someone who gave me beautiful flowers at one time or somewhere I used to live that had beautiful flowers. And now it’s just simply a flower. It might not even be beautiful, it’s just a flower. But yeah, I went to a shop yesterday and I saw this beautiful orchid and it was lovely and I bought the orchid. It was really, really nice. So in that way, yeah, I do appreciate things much more deeply than particularly a few years ago that I did where a few years ago there were times when I just didn’t really care about stuff like that. But now there is a deep appreciation without dwelling on it, without becoming overcome by it. And I know essentially it’s not going to affect how I feel. You know, it might be fun to buy a flower or to do something, see a movie, listen to music, but as soon as it’s finished, it’s gone or it’s out of the room, I’ve forgotten about it completely. So it doesn’t stay with me.

Rick: Yeah, it’s interesting, everybody talks about living in the now, you know, and not clinging to the past or pining for the future or whatever. And you just described beautifully a state in which you’re doing that. But you couldn’t have done that through some kind of psychological manipulation 15 years ago where it has to somehow be a natural way of functioning.

Linda: Well, no, there’s no way I could have done it before. You know, someone said to me the other day, “I’ve got this song in my head, going around in my head again and again.” And I said, “Oh, well that’s a real advantage of enlightenment. That doesn’t happen anymore. In fact, I just can’t remember what’s happened.” And people get a bit offended by that sometimes because they want you to remember them and what they said and this and that and what happened. And most of the time it’s just not there. But I seem to remember what I need to remember. I function much more efficiently than I used to because I haven’t got all this memory stuff going on in my head. And I write things down and I’m reasonably organized with things.

Rick: Yeah, that’s good. Now I’ve heard people describe that, that, you know, we think how much energy we burn up by thinking a hundred thoughts in a minute instead of the one thought that is actually worth thinking. There’s just all this “zzzz” going on.

Linda: What thought is worth thinking?

Rick: Well, you know, you do have thoughts, do you not, still?

Linda: Sometimes, but not a whole lot.

Rick: Well, that’s an interesting point, too. I had a discussion with someone one time. He said he just doesn’t think anymore since his enlightenment at all. And I thought, well, you know, don’t you find yourself like, isn’t there any kind of mental activity? I mean if you’re speaking to me there must be some kind of mental activity that precedes the physical action, even though it might not be. Or like right now, if you were to sit and close your eyes for five minutes, would you just get into a state where there was absolutely no mental activity whatsoever or would there be little ripples?

Linda: I don’t know. I don’t know until I close my eyes.

Rick: Well, you must do that every day, right?

Linda: Yeah, I do. But it’s different every time. So it’s not, you know, you think it’s going to be the same every time, but it’s not. It changes moment to moment. So when I sit, I never know what’s going to happen. But there is very, I can say there is very, very little thinking because I just can’t get involved in a thought. It’s actually harder for me to think now. Before, I used to feel, “Oh, it’s impossible not to think. How can I not think?” And now it’s the other way. It’s much harder to try and think and I just can’t do it most of the time. If I say, “I’m going to think about this or that,” it’s become so, so unnatural that I just can’t do it.

Rick: Well, let’s say, I mean, if you sit down to balance your checkbook, you know, you’re sitting there, you’re doing math, you’re working the calculator or whatever. Isn’t there some, I mean, isn’t there some mental activity that’s appropriate to the task at hand and yet you’re not thinking about what you did yesterday or what you’re going to make for lunch and all kinds of, you know, what that person said to you. There’s not like all kinds of irrelevant thoughts, but there are thoughts related to what you’re actually doing.

Linda: Well, I wouldn’t say that there are thoughts. With say doing something like that, it’s more looking at the numbers, adding them up, seeing what’s left. You know, there might be more money left than I thought. Oh, well, actually, there’s not this expectation anymore, so you just see the money, so there’s not such a reaction if you see, “Oh, there’s $1,000 rather than $3,000,” and there’s not, “Oh, there’s not that.” There’s just looking at the numbers and doing it practically, so there’s not an emotional, there’s very little thinking. Thinking is really overrated and we feel we’ve got this deep fear that if we don’t think, we don’t exist, and in a way that’s true. We only exist because of thinking, but when there’s so many, most things that we do in the world don’t require thinking. Like talking to you now, there’s no thinking involved.

Rick: It’s spontaneous.

Linda: Yeah, it’s completely spontaneous and that’s what happens. Everything becomes completely spontaneous because there’s not this delay. In a way, there’s not this me and you. There’s just this. When there’s thinking involved, there’s a separation, so there’s a subject and an object. When there’s no thinking involved, there’s not that separation, there’s not that space which implies time between you. Thinking creates the illusion of time and in this state, there’s no time. I mean, there’s no time. You just realize that there’s no time.

Rick: Well, I could ask you a question right now and I could say, “Don’t answer me out loud. I want you to just sort of work out the answer in your head and then tell me,” or I could say, “Count from one to ten in your mind without saying it out loud,” and wouldn’t there be some mental activity in both instances? I’m just trying to establish the point that an enlightened person is not totally without mental activity. It’s just that they’re without extraneous, unnecessary, wasteful mental activity.

Linda: Well, there’s a bit of, is mental activity necessarily thinking? Like, the brain is different to the mind. The brain is a physical organism. So, of course, I’m using my brain, but there doesn’t need to be thinking involved. So I feel what happens in this enlightening process is that the brain becomes pure. You actually become much more deeply intelligent, purely intelligent when there’s no thinking involved. People equate thinking with intelligence, but really pure intelligence is just using your brain and you realize the potential of your brain rather than the mind being involved in this intellectual understanding of everything. And, with enlightenment, you realize your true intelligence. So, you realize everything and thinking is a very, very small part of the whole thing.

Rick: Right. Reminds me of the Wizard of Oz, you know, the way I’d be thinking I could be another Lincoln if I only had a brain.

Linda: Yeah, yeah. And that’s one of the reasons I really, and meditation is really about being in your body. It’s like you’re using your body’s intelligence rather than the mind’s very limited intelligence. So, rather than using the mind as a reference point, you start to use your body as a reference point, which eventually you let go of as well, but you need to use the body because it’s such a tangible organism. It’s much more tangible than your mind, so you use your body as a stepping stone to see clearly what’s happening in your mind.

Rick: Like a tool, like an implement, a vehicle.

Linda: Yeah, yeah, a vehicle.

Rick: And you mentioned the body’s intelligence, but earlier you referred to sort of like, almost like the intelligence of nature, a field of intelligence that’s vast beyond the confines of the body. I think you could … You did. You were saying, we were talking about pure unconsciousness and in the same breath you said pure intelligence. And, you know, that’s generally understood, both, or whichever term we use is generally understood in spiritual circles to be like an unbounded field. And, like, often the wave and ocean analogy is used, like that’s like the ocean and then our individual bodies and minds and individualities are like just sort of expressions of that.

Linda: Well, what I feel now is that I’ve become the ocean. There’s no separation between me and the ocean, so the body is the ocean. There’s not this … there is, in a relative sense, there is this individual body, but it’s the same as the ocean and the trees and, yeah.

Rick: Just like waves are nothing but water, they’re the same ocean as the …

Linda: Yeah, yeah.

Rick: Yeah. So, with all this talk about thinking, what do you think is the impetus or the stimulus to thinking? What is it that in most people keeps the mind racing, or at least percolating, and in an enlightened person enables it to come to rest?

Linda: Fear of death of the body.

Rick: So, you mean some guy who’s walking down the street and who’s thinking about a million things, what he’s going to do, what’s happening at work, and all that, that’s all just because of fear of death of the body that all that mental activity is going on?

Linda: Yeah.

Rick: Huh.

Linda: It all comes down to that.

Rick: Ultimately.

Linda: Yeah, ultimately it all comes down to that.

Rick: Huh, interesting. What about the whole notion of impressions? Do they talk about this in Buddhism, where there’s this kind of … in Hinduism, they talk about the chit, the vasanas, which are all these stored impressions that we have uncountable numbers of them, and that they are always sort of giving rise to thoughts and desires and binding us to a cycle in which we pursue a desire, fulfill it, reinforce the impression which caused us to pursue it, and there’s this kind of like treadmill that we’re on. Has that been part of your upbringing, that understanding?

Linda: Well, I wasn’t incredibly into Buddhism. I know I practiced Zen and Theravada Buddhism, but I wasn’t actually a Buddhist. It was just more the practice. So, I’m not sure, I’m really not up on the theory. I can only talk about me and my experience.

Rick: But in terms of your experience, do you feel like there had been … I think you might have covered this, maybe we can get a little bit more out of it, that you had been driven by sort of latent impressions from various times and things you had experienced throughout your life, and that you’re no longer driven by those. You’re like a free spirit, so to speak.

Linda: Yeah, that’s true. I can see I was driven by my past before, and the past gradually dissolves.

Rick: So what drives you now? What is the motivating force that gets you out of bed in the morning and causes you to do whatever you do?

Linda: Love.

Rick: Ah, nice. And what is love?

Linda: Freedom from fear?

Rick: We keep going back to that, don’t we?

Linda: I know, freedom from judgment, the absence of judgment. That’s what love is.

Rick: Yeah, you said in your book a lot that you don’t really experience emotions, and I think that might scare some people. They might think, “Oh, that doesn’t sound good. I like emotions. I want to experience emotions, especially the good ones.” But I think you said that in what you’re describing, something deeper than these relative emotions can emerge when those have gone away, and that is love, right?

Linda: Yeah. Yeah. It’s incredible. And you were talking about things in the world that I feel deeply about now, and I think the main thing, I remember my teacher saying once, “Love makes existence bearable,” and that’s so true. It’s really true. But there’s a park just opposite me, and I often walk around it. It’s got a running track around it. I have some really beautiful interactions with people without speaking, just walking around, and they might be walking in the opposite direction, so they’re walking by me. And just a smile. The other day, a woman just smiled at me, and I smiled back. And there was this incredible connection and joy in this one moment, and then it was gone. That was it, but it was just beautiful. So little things like that, that aren’t personal, just an energetic connection with people, are lovely.

Rick: Does the love feel like something that just comes in a wave when there’s an interaction like that, or do you feel like it’s an undercurrent, a continuum, that’s just kind of there all the time, and here and there something can stir it up a bit, but it’s there regardless of whether anything stirs it up?

Linda: Yeah. It’s there regardless of whether anything stirs it up, but it is lovely to have it stirred up.

Rick: Yeah, yeah. And do you feel that… does it have a bliss component, the love?

Linda: Not anymore. It did before, but now it’s more of a joy. I don’t really like using the word bliss too much because, I don’t know, it doesn’t describe it adequately. It’s more of a deep…

Rick: Joy is somewhat synonymous.

Linda: A deep joy. Yeah. Yeah, it’s a bit the same. It’s a bit similar, but there are no words to describe it. It’s just this incredible feeling of oneness, and when you feel it with another human being, it’s just so beautiful having that deep connection, and it’s why I love teaching because there are other people consciously wanting, desiring this oneness, this deep connection, which is what everyone wants really, and so having that connection with someone is amazing.

Rick: When you’re teaching, and you’re sitting with a room full of people, do you find, or even if you’re walking down the street for that matter, but probably more so when you’re teaching, do you find a sort of an ability to assess where people are at individually? Can you get a sense of how far along the path they are, what might be blocking them, what they might need in terms of the next step for them, that kind of thing?

Linda: When I’m teaching, when I’m just walking down the street, I don’t… Not so much, no. No, no, it’s just nice. I like watching people. That’s nice.

Rick: Yeah.

Linda: And just feeling, energetically feeling them, and seeing little interactions, like I might be on a tram and something really lovely happens or funny happens. I really like that. But when I’m teaching, yeah, I do get a sense, especially talking more with people and knowing someone for a bit longer. I get a definite sense of where they are and what they need, and I don’t think about it. And sometimes I say things and I’ve got no idea why I said them or how. And I never prepare anything. I never prepare any talks or anything like that.

Rick: Yeah. Seriously, because when a person puts themselves in the position of teacher, as you’ve done, if they’re qualified to do so, then it almost seems like certain aptitudes come out, certain abilities which they might not otherwise ever utilize that make them effective in the role that they’ve stepped into.

Linda: Definitely. And I think one of my strengths, if you want to call it that, is the one-to-one interaction with people.

Rick: Yeah.

Linda: That’s what I really love. It’s great. I don’t think I’d be good sitting up in front of, I mean, I don’t know, I really don’t know, but sitting up in front of a crowd.

Rick: Three hundred people, yeah. l;Yeah, yeah. I mean, Adyashanti, for example, is a great talker. He’s great at that. But I don’t feel I’d be into that.

Rick: Yeah. He was good at the one-on-one too. I’ve interviewed people who were with him in those days, but he’s just not, the whole thing grew too big and he can’t do that anymore.

Linda: Yeah, yeah. In fact, he probably loved doing it too.

Rick: He would actually. I interviewed one guy who is friends with him and who has a very kind of small teaching circle and he and Adya have had conversations where Adya sort of is nostalgic for those days.

Linda: Yeah, yeah. It’s a lovely thing to do. It’s just an amazing thing to do. And seeing someone change, well, you could say changing, but going more deeply into it before your eyes is a beautiful thing to watch.

Rick: Yeah. Have any of your students woken up yet to what you would consider enlightenment or some significant shift?

Linda: Well, a lot of them have had significant shifts, a lot, but I’d say two have become enlightened. One of them, a man who’s teaching now, doing some teaching, although he’s not doing too much, just some. And he’s in Adelaide. I’ve moved to Melbourne now, another city. And then a woman who died of cancer last December, a few months before she died, I would have described her as enlightened, realized.

Rick: And how would you evaluate somebody to determine whether they were enlightened or not? Does it come again back to absence of fear and their kind of accounting of what they’re experiencing or how would you evaluate it?

Linda: Well, for the woman who died, there was an absence of fear, a total acceptance of death. And there was, the last few months, there was just this glow about her. She’d sit there and look at flowers and just go, “Ah, what a beautiful day it is.” And she’d be, you know, she was going through chemo and she had cancer. It was awful. But she was just so beautiful and she just became more and more beautiful every day. And with the man, it was just a very strong energetic thing that was happening in him and this incredible determination and earnestness and love. And yeah.

Rick: And then if he became enlightened, did the determination and earnestness relax because he had actually arrived at what he was determined to achieve?

Linda: Yes, that’s what happens. But I think what you need to also be careful of is that it doesn’t become too relaxed as well.

Rick: Yeah, Joseph Goldstein said that in something I was listening to. He’s a Buddhist teacher in the US and he said there’s sort of a balance point between, you know, getting, straining too much and getting sloppy. It’s just kind of like maybe like riding a bicycle or something. And when you’re good at it, you have to keep balancing.

Linda: You do. And post enlightenment, if you want to use that term, you have to be very aware and particularly aware I think. It’s at a different level, but you still have to see that you still need to stay on your toes and stay aware. This is for a while, I’d say. For me, it was for about seven years.

Rick: You have to stay aware lest you lose your enlightenment or are there some sorts of pitfalls that you might get yourself in trouble with if you don’t stay aware or alert?

Linda: Well, you never lose it and that’s probably one of the other definitions of enlightenment. It’s not something that you lose, but you have to be aware that you don’t start to become identified subtly in the ego at a different level. As I was, like I was saying before, you know, identified as a teacher. And I felt that I wasn’t identified as a teacher. And then when this man, Roger, became enlightened, we talked together for a while. And it was really good for me as a teacher to see that there was something still in me and there was this slight attachment to being the teacher and these were my students. So it was the perfect thing for me at the time.

Rick: Yeah, you’ve probably heard the term “spiritualized ego” and there are egregious examples of where people appear to have, something profound has happened and yet they’ve got these blind spots and end up becoming outrageously self-important and get into all kinds of messy situations with students and whatnot. So I don’t know, it depends on how we define enlightenment or something. It seems to me that if one is really enlightened, if the term really has profound implications and we’re not just going to use it as a halfway measure, then hopefully there’s a point at which one wouldn’t fall prey to such behavior or such a downfall. But I guess it does pay to stay on your toes, eh?

Linda: Yeah, it does and you need to become more and more humble. And I think part of the way of doing that is acknowledging, and maybe another part of having a teacher, is acknowledging that your teacher is always going to be more deeply into this than you. Not saying, “I am the supreme being, blah, blah, blah,” all that, but having this deep respect and gratitude and love for one’s teacher.

Rick: Good point.

Linda: Or teachers.

Rick: Yeah, however enlightened one may be, in some traditions one never stops acknowledging and paying respects to one’s teacher. You see many people have a picture of their teacher behind them, you know, as a constant reminder that they’re just sort of carrying on something that has been imparted to them and they’re never putting themselves on any kind of ultimate pinnacle.

Linda: Yeah, yeah, and that’s the reason and that’s what you need to keep aware of.

Rick: You know, a lot of times I start interviews with talking to people about their personal life and what they went through at various stages and spiritual practice and this and that. And with you we kind of started out at the end talking about enlightenment. Perhaps folks would find it interesting to just hear a little bit about how you started out with all this. I think you were like 37 before you even got interested in spirituality. Why don’t you give us an overview of that?

Linda: Yeah, well I just had a normal upbringing. Wasn’t rich, wasn’t poor, fairly happy and contented and went to university and then became a bit of a hippie. I met my then partner at the time and we had two children. I had them when I was, my son when I was 25, my daughter when I was 26. And then we traveled around a bit doing different things. And he was always interested, my ex-partner Dave, he was always interested in meditation, enlightenment, was into Ramana Maharshi. And I was a bit interested but not really interested. I can say at the time now that I needed to do a few things which included having children for whatever reason. And I’m glad I did that. It was great. So he actually would go around traveling, selling. I was an artist at the time and he’d go around selling my work and he’d always be on the lookout for someone enlightened or a teacher. So he went to see Barry Long quite regularly and I went once with him and it was sort of interesting but didn’t affect me deeply, well not that I was aware of. And then he found this teacher up near Byron Bay who he went to see a few times and was really impressed by. And then I was up there with him once. We were on holidays and he wanted to go and meditate with Peter, this teacher. And I remember saying, “No, I don’t want to go. We’re on holidays. I just don’t want to go there.” So he virtually dragged me along to this meditation evening. And it was good but I still wasn’t really into it. And then we kept up contact with Peter, and Dave would go and see him when he could. He lived a long way away from where we were living. And then I went up there again one time and we went and had dinner with Peter and his wife and outside we were saying goodbye. This was in the evening. And I just looked at him, looked at Peter and something happened. It was like something just clicked and I suddenly saw this incredible depth and potential in me through him, in him. And from that moment I started, you know, I got back. I remember I got back to where I was living. I flew back and suddenly all I wanted to do was be around this person, around this being. So eventually we moved up there and moved very close to where Peter was living and he was giving regular meditation sessions. And I just gradually, well quite quickly actually, just took the meditation straight away. But it was more my connection with Peter too. It was almost like it was a mixture of meditation and devotion and love. And I wasn’t that sort of person to start with so it really surprised me. And it wasn’t an outward, “Oh, he’s fantastic,” blah, blah. It was very contained within myself and it felt very private. But that’s when I really started getting into it. So I spent six years, it was around six years, doing regular retreats with him, seeing him when I could. And I just became quite obsessed with the whole thing, with him and with meditation and enlightenment. That’s all I wanted. And I still had the rest of my life. I still had my children and work and partner and all that. And that was good because it actually stopped me from becoming overly obsessed by the whole thing so that grounded me to a degree. And I didn’t talk to many people about it because they just thought I was just totally obsessed, which I was. And I’d say to a friend, “Oh, yeah, I’m going to do another retreat.” And she’d say, “Another one?” So yeah, that’s how it was.

Rick: Is this Peter fellow still around?

Linda: Yeah, he is, he is.

Rick: Peter who?

Linda: Peter Jones, his name is. He calls himself Peter G now, Peter G. But he’s not teaching at the moment because he’s been quite sick. I went to see him a few weeks ago and that was great.

Rick: And then you ended up going to Japan and studying with Roshis over there?

Linda: Yeah, well, Peter stopped doing retreats so much. He just wasn’t doing retreats. And I felt after a certain stage I really needed a bit more discipline and structure. I think I was probably a bit comfortable with my life and physically. And I went and did a retreat. It was still in Australia but with a Japanese Zen teacher, Hogen Yamahata. So I started doing retreats with him. And then I found out he’d talk about his master all the time. And I felt, “Wow, this guy’s pretty amazing, so his master must be incredible.” And then someone said, “He takes Western students in Japan in his monastery.” And as soon as they said that, I was like, “Uh.” I knew I was going to go. So not long after that, I decided to go. I only spent six weeks there, but, God, it was the hardest six weeks of my life. It was so difficult. It was really, really cold. But for me, it was exactly the right time. I really needed to get away from any sort of security that I had in my life, go somewhere totally unknown and where I didn’t know anyone. And the conditions were really harsh. And be around this amazing being, who was the most compassionate being I’ve ever met.

Rick: Huh. And so you went through this ordeal. And then at what point, I guess you had some initial awakening and then the final enchilada, the final enlightenment. And did that all happen in the context of these Zen retreats?

Linda: No, the initial awakening happened about a year after I met Peter. So that was probably when I was around 38, 38, 39. And that was just a recognition that the mind was not reality. You know, there was no mind. That was the initial recognition. But because I was with Peter, he sort of warned me about it. And it happened and it was amazing. But then I was ready to really put in the work after that. So rather than the temptation is to say, “Okay, that’s it. I’ve had an awakening. This is amazing.” But to see that it’s only the beginning is another thing. And he really helped me see that and encouraged me to keep going.

Rick: And so then the big awakening was when?

Linda: That would have been, well, I didn’t know it at the time, but it would have been, it was when I was in Japan with Harada Tangen Roshi, when I was there. But I didn’t actually realize it until about nine months later in a retreat with Hogen San. So I think that’s what I…

Rick: So was it sort of, why didn’t you realize it? Was it subtle or, you know, I mean, there must have been something that really shifted, but you woke up the next day and you went on and I mean, things weren’t different enough that you felt like, “Whoa, what has happened?”

Linda: I think I was just in shock. It was so shocking and I hadn’t completely realized that it had happened. But it’s such a deep shock.

Rick: You felt like something has happened and it’s shocking, but I don’t know what this is. And it took you nine months to grow into a realization of what it was.

Linda: Yeah. It was like, there was this time lapse, this delay in realizing it because I probably hadn’t completely realized it, but the initial shock had happened. And it wasn’t, it’s not something that you can define or know. You know, it’s something that you’ve never experienced before, so it’s very hard to put it into context and to completely realize it because it’s realizing the unknown. I mean, I could see things were happening when I was there, but I didn’t realize that until later because that was so deep, so intense.

Rick: So it’s not like it happened and then nine months went by and all of a sudden at the end of nine months, “Aha!” that’s what it was, but it was more like a kind of a growing into it over that nine month period? Would that be fair to say?

Linda: Yeah, it was like a gradual realization over that nine month period.

Rick: And so at the end of the nine months, what was it about the end of the nine months that you finally put a lid on it, so to speak, that you finally sort of realized, “Okay, now I’m finished, I know what that was.” How did it wrap it up?

Linda: I was doing a 10-day retreat in Australia with Hogen San, the Zen teacher. The first few days were fine. I was just doing my practice and sitting, walking, sitting, walking. And then something happened. I think it was on around the third or fourth day and Hogan San used to come around and adjust our posture sometimes when we were sitting. And he came around and adjusted mine and he touched me and I just let out this really strange noise. It was like, “Ahh!” And suddenly I felt really embarrassed and really incredibly self-conscious. And it was like I thought, “Ahh!” After all this stuff, all this practice and everything I’ve been through and something like this still makes me feel self-conscious. And it was like it did something to me. It was like a turbo boost and I went, “Okay, I’ve had enough of this. I’m not going to do this anymore.” And from that point on during the retreat, I made this decision to sit through. We’d have half an hour, I think it might have been 40-minute sitting and then 5 or 10 minutes walking and then another 40-minute sitting and then we’d have a break, morning tea or whatever and then come back. And I decided to sit through every sitting because I realized I’d been a bit slack to start with and I was just being comfortable and a bit lazy taking it easy. So that’s what I started doing. So I’d hear the bell go and there was a bit of pain, but not all that much pain. But every time the bell would go and I decided to sit through the whole thing, I’d get this wave of fear coming through my body.

Rick: You mean the bell would go telling you that that session was over and you could go take a break, but you wouldn’t take a break, you just kept sitting there for like hours or something.

Linda: Yeah, from 9.30 to around 12.30, I decided to just sit there. So I’d sit there and I’d hear the bells going and every time the bell would go, it was like, “Oh, this is my chance to sit up.” I knew I was determined to sit there and my heart would start beating and I just felt this incredible fear in my body and my heart was just thumping. And that would happen every time the bell would go. And it was like, it was this incredibly deep fear of the pain. I mean, essentially it was fear of death. And that just kept happening over the next few days and the heart beating gradually subsided. And after the sit, at lunchtime, I’d just go out and lie on the grass and I’d just feel amazing. But the fear, and this was just this residual fear, just eventually dissolved. And there was one sit where it was in the morning and I had a headache. And I used to be quite prone to headaches and I knew this headache, I felt this headache was going to evolve into a stronger headache. And I was a bit tempted to take a tablet, a Panadol or something. And then I thought, “No, no, I won’t. I don’t want it to dull me at all. I’ll wait. I’ll wait until later.” So I was sitting there and just really watching this headache really closely. And then suddenly it just went. It just went completely. And any pain that I had in my body, it just all went. And I had this feeling, this strange feeling of reality becoming tangible. It’s really hard to explain. It was almost like, I’ve described it like this before, a fairy tale coming true. So it’s like the impossible was suddenly real. Everything that I thought was unreal became real and very tangible in me. And I remember one of the last things I heard my mind saying was, “This can’t be happening to you.” And it was quite amazing. It was just this faint, “This can’t be happening to you.” And then everything just went. And it was just the tangibility of it all that was so real. So it wasn’t a bright light. It was like everything had just clicked into place in a different way to how I thought it was going to click into place. And from then on, I just kept sitting through and containing this realization, which was what it was. But it was like there were no questions about it, just nothing, no questions at all about what had happened. It was just completely obvious to me. And I didn’t say anything to my teacher at that stage. I just kept sitting through the retreat. But it was this incredible knowing but not knowing, knowing of the unknown.

Rick: Interesting. It kind of reminds me of Buddha under the Bodhi tree, you know, saying, “I’m just going to sit here until I get enlightened.” There’s this kind of determination. In fact, there’s a thing in the Yoga Sutras where Patanjali classifies yogis in terms of how readily they’ll gain enlightenment. And he says, “Those with vehement intensity will gain it the most quickly.” It kind of reminds me of that too. You had this vehement intensity and, “I’m going to sit here, come hell or high water,” and it paid off.

Linda: Yes, and that was it. It was simply from that reaction and just going, “Ah, I’ve had enough. I can’t stand this anymore.” And previously I’d had degrees of that but not to that level. It was just this incredible determination is one of the things you really need.

Rick: Yeah, it’s interesting because some people say things like, you know, that desiring enlightenment is kind of like it only intensifies the sense of the individuality who desires it or it’s like it’s chasing a carrot. You know, you’re always running after something that you’re never going to reach because the carrot’s always out in front of you and really it’s right here. But like some of the other things we were agreeing upon earlier, I feel like there’s really something to be said for that. And I’ve seen many examples of it, that there’s a correlation between strong determination and actual realization. In fact, there are various sages that say, you know, I think it was Anandamayi Ma who said that the desire for God is in itself the way to realize God. The more profound the desire, the more likely the realization.

Linda: True, true, and probably the deeper the realization too.

Rick: And I think for people…

Linda: I use my teachers as the carrot. I use my teacher as the carrot. So every time I would see him, it was like, “Ah, it’s true. It’s real.” And you need someone in the body in front of you proving to you that it’s real because your mind is never going to believe it, never.

Rick: And determination can be intensified, can’t it? I mean, it’s kind of like a fire that you can add fuel to. Because if a person listening to this feels like, “Eh, it doesn’t feel like it’s going to happen to me because I’m kind of lukewarm.” Well, you can take that lukewarmness and continually heat it up.

Linda: Yeah, yeah. And that’s what I did. I mean, being around my teacher, being around someone free is really going to intensify the whole thing.

Rick: Yeah, there’s a saying, “That to which you give your attention grows stronger in your life.”

Linda: Yeah, and you have to give this to really go the whole way. You have to give it your complete attention. It has to be number one priority. Yeah, I mean, the title of your book here is “What Do You Want?” And “Want” is in big red type. Yeah.

Linda: Yeah.

Rick: Now, when you wrote this book or when you had the conversations that are in this book, you were with somebody named Dave, apparently. But then you’ve been referring to him as your ex-partner now. You and Dave no longer together?

Linda: No, no. We were together 30 years. Oh, okay. Yeah, when I was 22, we had two children together.

Rick: Okay, so he, yeah, okay. And yet, so you split up post-enlightenment?

Linda: And that doesn’t mean everyone who’s married is going to split up. People get scared of that.

Rick: Is there anything I can ask you about or you can elaborate about in terms of how that went that wouldn’t be too personal or compromise your confidentiality with Dave or whatever? But I mean, because people are interested in relationships and they wonder how enlightenment is going to affect their relationships, whether it’s going to enhance them, whether it’s going to end them. And you’ve talked about how what motivates you is you’re kind of on automatic in a way. There’s just this sort of spontaneous way of going through your life now. So is there anything you can say about how your awakening impacted a 30-year relationship and in effect ended it or was it not really related to your awakening that it ended?

Linda: It impacted on it. It does change the dynamics of a relationship. So I don’t know if I want to go into it too much because it’s talking about Dave and he’s not here.

Rick: Yeah, that’s why I asked the question that way. I don’t want to put you on the spot. And Dave was obviously a very spiritual guy. So you know.

Linda: Yeah, and he still is. And it did definitely affect the dynamics of it. And I saw there were deep habits that we’d got into that you can’t help but get into in a long-term relationship, that there were deep habits that I’d got into that I hadn’t really worked on during my practice, even though I could see them, because I was just putting so much energy into this, into my practice. And it was really good being, having a reasonably stable family life during my practice too. It was very grounding and having someone there and especially someone who was into it as well. And there were challenges as well because one of you is probably always going through some stirring up, some deep emotional thing. And we started, when I first started teaching, we started together. And he actually did the transcribing for that book and edited it and everything. And we started all that up together. And why we separated, lots of reasons really.

Rick: Okay, I won’t press that. It’s too private.

Linda: We’re friends now though.

Rick: Yeah, that’s great. Yeah. Okay, good. Is there anything that you feel we might have left out that you want to make sure to say before we wrap this up?

Linda: Hmm, there’s probably lots of things but I can’t think of them.

Rick: I know.

Linda: Have you got any more questions?

Rick: Oh, you know, it’s funny. After I do these interviews I always think of things I should have asked and sometimes I feel a little bit down because I feel like, “Oh darn it, I really kind of skimmed the surface in this area where I could have gone deeper and I didn’t do justice to this person.” And so I’m very critical of myself and I probably think too much. But I think this has gone reasonably well and it gives people a, well there’s certain practical things we could mention. Like if people are living in Holland or someplace and they kind of felt a resonance with you, do they have to travel to Australia? Do you do Skype sessions with people? I mean, how can a person become your student if they want to?

Linda: Well, yeah, I’m doing more and more Skype sessions with people and I travel a little bit. I’m coming to the States in a few weeks actually.

Rick: Oh, great.

Linda: Yeah, I’m doing a retreat. I’m doing an evening in a place called Lynchburg in Virginia and the TAP weekend near Washington. I’m not exactly sure of the place. I think that’s in Virginia too.

Rick: It is. It’s near Virginia.

Linda: Yeah.

Rick: A lot of Civil War history there.

Linda: And then I’m doing a five or six day retreat in the Catskills near New York.

Rick: Okay.

Linda: I used to do retreats up there.

Rick: Did you?

Linda: Yeah.

Rick: What town is this going to be?

Linda: I think it’s, I’m not sure. It’s on my website.

Rick: Okay, it doesn’t matter. It’s on your website.

Linda: It’s on my website. It’s in September.

Rick: Yeah.

Linda: Yeah, so I’m doing the things in Lynchburg the end of August and then I think it’s the

Rick: And are these events full or can people still sign up for them?

Linda: I think there’s still spaces. I’m not sure about residential spaces, but there are still spaces in Catskills.

Rick: Check your website.

Linda: Yeah, so check my website. It’s all on there. And yeah, I usually go to the States once a year or Canada. I’ve done a couple of retreats in Canada lately.

Rick: Great.

Linda: So do that.

Rick: And so if people listening to this want you to come where they are, like to the UK or Europe or South Africa or someplace like that, are you open to going other places?

Linda: If someone organizes a retreat, sure. I’ll come.

Rick: Okay, great.

Linda: I just don’t want to organize. I have a fair few retreats here every year, but yeah, I’m always open to going somewhere else.

Rick: Good. I’ll put that out there. If people are listening to this, they can get in touch with you through your website.

Linda: Okay.

Rick: Okay. Well, thanks. This is, I think we’ve covered quite a lot of ground. I really appreciate it. It’s been 7 to 9 in the morning for you in Australia.

Linda: Oh, is that 2 hours?

Rick: Yeah, it’s 2 hours. Time flies when you’re having fun, huh? Or as Kermit the Frog put it, “Time’s fun when you’re having flies.” You know Kermit the Frog?

Linda: Yeah.

Rick: So let me make a few wrap-up points. I’ve been speaking with Linda Clair and she obviously lives in Australia but gets around, does Skype sessions. What is your website?

Linda: www.simplemeditation.net.

Rick: Any dash or anything or just all spread together? Simple meditation?

Linda: No, it’s just all simplemeditation.net.

Rick: Okay, and I’ll also be linking to that from your page on www.batgap.com. And obviously people know how the internet works, they can go there and explore and get in touch with you and find out what you’re up to. And this interview has been one in a continuing series. There are 240 something now. And if you would like to look at other ones, go to batgap.com, B-A-T-G-A-P, and you’ll look under past interviews and you’ll see about four different kinds of index. There’s alphabetical, chronological, topical or categorical index, and most watched ones, most popular ones. Under future interviews, there’s a list of upcoming guests and a place to suggest new guests if you’d like to suggest one. Then there’s a donate button, which I appreciate people clicking. And if they didn’t click it, I wouldn’t be doing this, but they do in sufficient numbers to enable this to continue. And if support increases even more, I’ll start doing this full time. There’s a link to sign up to be notified by email every time a new interview is posted. There is a link to an audio podcast of this on iTunes, which you’ll see in Linda’s interview and in every other one. It says, “Video below” and also available as an audio podcast. Click there, you’ll go to sign up in iTunes. And there’s a forum, which is sometimes pretty active, sometimes not, but each guest has their own little section in the forum where people can discuss points that have been raised in that particular interview. So there’ll be a link to that on Linda’s page. So that just about covers it. So thanks again, Linda.

Linda: Thank you, Rick.

Rick: And thanks to those who’ve been listening or watching. And I’m going to do two interviews this weekend. So tomorrow’s interview is going to be with Dan Harris, who’s the host of ABC’s Nightline and Weekend Good Morning America, who has written a book called 10% Happier. So he’s kind of a well-known guy. I’ll be speaking with him tomorrow. So until then, sayonara.